Sophisticated User and Intermediary Defenses in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on sophisticated user: 87 cases, by state. Each line gives what the court held, in our words; the law differs from state to state and changes, so read the opinion and talk to a lawyer before relying on any of them.

About this issue

These are two different defenses that limit a supplier's duty to warn:

• The sophisticated user defense says there is no duty to warn a user who already knows, or should know, of the specific danger, such as a trained professional in a trade.
• The sophisticated intermediary (or bulk supplier) defense says a supplier that sells to a knowledgeable buyer, such as a manufacturer buying raw asbestos fiber, may rely on that buyer to warn its own workers, but only when that reliance is reasonable. Courts look at what the buyer actually knew, how dangerous the product is, whether the supplier had a practical way to warn the workers, and whether it had reason to think the buyer would pass the warning on.

An employer's knowledge is not the same as a worker's, and general awareness that asbestos is hazardous does not by itself end a supplier's duty. Some courts reject or narrow these defenses, and many decisions in this section leave them for a jury.

California

• Smargisso v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2024). Under maritime law, plaintiffs must show actual exposure to the defendant's asbestos products and that the exposure was a substantial contributing factor; circumstantial shipmate and records evidence can meet this. Non-pecuniary damages are not recoverable in a maritime wrongful death action based on negligence and strict liability absent historical support.
• Watts v. Pneumo Abex, LLC (1st Appellate District, 2nd Division, 2024). A directed verdict against a defendant on the sophisticated user defense is improper when, viewing the evidence most favorably to the defendant, a jury could find the plaintiff knew or should have known of the product's hazards as a member of the class of sophisticated users.
• Spurlin v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2021). Under federal maritime law, a manufacturer has a duty to warn when its product requires incorporation of a part, it knows or has reason to know the integrated product is likely dangerous, and it has no reason to believe users will realize the danger. Punitive damages and loss of consortium are not available in a maritime negligence action.
• Saller v. Crown Cork & Seal Company, Inc. (2nd Appellate District, 1st Division, 2017). A supplier asserting the sophisticated intermediary defense must present evidence that it actually and reasonably relied on the intermediary to warn end users. A punitive damages award requires evidence of the liable defendant's own financial condition, and evidence about its corporate parent does not suffice.
• Moran v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation (2nd Appellate District, 4th Division, 2016). To establish the sophisticated user defense to a failure-to-warn claim, the defendant must prove that the plaintiff, or his peer group, knew or should have known of the specific risk from the start of the exposure. The general state of scientific and industry knowledge cannot be imputed to the plaintiff without evidence of how it reached him or his peer group.
• Webb v. Special Electric Company, Inc. (2016). A supplier of a hazardous raw material may discharge its duty to warn end users under the sophisticated intermediary doctrine only if it warned the purchaser or sold to a purchaser it knew was or should have been aware of the specific danger, and it actually and reasonably relied on the purchaser to warn downstream users. The supplier bears the burden of proof, and reasonable reliance is ordinarily a jury question.
• Kelly v. CBS Corporation (2015). Defendants may not base a sophisticated user defense on the Navy's knowledge imputed to the plaintiff; they must show that the plaintiff himself received information that made him know, or should have made him know, of the asbestos dangers.
• Collin v. Calportland Company (3rd Appellate District, 2014). A plaintiff must show exposure to the specific defendant's asbestos-containing product, and a defendant can shift the burden on summary judgment with comprehensive discovery and factually devoid responses; the sophisticated user defense turns on what the class of users knew or should have known about the particular product's dangers.
• Gottschall v. Crane Co. (1st Appellate District, 2nd Division, 2014). Collateral estoppel cannot bind a California litigant to another court's ruling on a point of California law that is wrong. The federal court's holding that the Navy's sophistication as a user shielded a supplier was inconsistent with California authority, which looks to the plaintiff's own knowledge rather than an intermediary's.
• Scott v. Ford Motor Company (1st Appellate District, 1st Division, 2014). The sophisticated user defense did not bar a failure to warn claim because Ford did not prove that service station owners knew or should have known of automotive asbestos risks during the early part of Scott's career. Under California's governmental interest analysis, Michigan has no interest in having its ban on punitive damages applied in California courts, so no true conflict exists and California law applies.
• Willis v. Buffalo Pumps Inc. (2014). Under California law, a boiler maker can be liable for asbestos components it supplied or specified, and the sophisticated user defense turns on the plaintiff's own sophistication, not the employer's. A Restatement § 402B misrepresentation claim requires an affirmative misrepresentation, not just concealment.
• Pfeifer v. John Crane, Inc. (2nd Appellate District, 4th Division, 2013). When a supplier sells hazardous goods to a sophisticated intermediary that passes them to its employees, the supplier can still be liable for failing to warn those employees unless it has reason to believe the ultimate users know or should know of the hazards. The intermediary's sophistication alone does not shield the supplier.
• Webb v. Special Electric Company, Inc. (2nd Appellate District, 1st Division, 2013). A trial court may enter judgment notwithstanding the verdict only after the statutory waiting period and with the required written notice. A supplier of raw asbestos is not relieved of its duty to warn downstream users, as a matter of law, just because its sophisticated customer already knew the dangers.
• Rollin v. Foster Wheeler, LLC (2nd Appellate District, 2nd Division, 2012). The sophisticated user defense does not bar a worker's claim merely because his employer was knowledgeable about asbestos, and the sophisticated intermediary doctrine applies only if the manufacturer gave adequate warnings to the intermediary. A new trial was proper so the parties could address the O'Neil limits on liability for other manufacturers' asbestos products.
• Kelemen v. John Crane, Inc. (2nd District, Division 2, 2011). Punitive damages require evidence of the defendant's financial condition, and a defendant that refuses a court order to produce its financial records cannot then argue the plaintiff lacked such evidence. A future pain and suffering award is excessive when it is based on life expectancy without the disease rather than the plaintiff's actual short prognosis.
• Davis v. Leslie Controls, Inc. (2nd Appellate District, 7th Division, 2010). A party who does not request an instruction defining the ordinary consumers for the consumer expectations test forfeits that claim. A design defect finding independently supports the judgment, so the court did not decide whether the sophisticated user defense applies when the employer is the sophisticated user. A non-economic damages award that is excessive as a matter of law requires remittitur or a new trial.
• Stewart v. Union Carbide Corporation (2nd Appellate District, 5th Division, 2010). A raw asbestos supplier that gave no warning cannot rely on a sophisticated purchaser or intermediary to give warnings, and the sophisticated-user rule in Johnson turns on the user's own knowledge, not the purchaser's. A defendant seeking to shift fault to other asbestos suppliers bears the burden of proving their fault and its percentage.
• Handley v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County (2nd Appellate District, 3rd Division, 2009). A trial court abuses its discretion by granting summary adjudication as a sanction for a minor violation of the 20-page limit on opposition briefs without considering the merits of the arguments raised, given the policy favoring resolution of cases on the merits.
• O'neil v. Crane Co. (2nd Appellate District, 5th Division, 2009). Makers of pumps and valves designed to be used with asbestos insulation and packing are not shielded by the component parts defense. They can be strictly liable for failure to warn and design defect when a user is injured by replacement asbestos used with their products during ordinary maintenance.
• Ransom v. Calaveras Asbestos, Ltd. (2nd Appellate District, 5th Division, 2009). A jury's apportionment of fault is reviewed for substantial evidence and is not subject to exact mathematical computation. Sophisticated user and bulk supplier arguments not raised at trial are forfeited on appeal.
• Cunningham v. Buffalo Pumps, Inc. (2nd Appellate District, 7th Division, 2008). The consumer expectations test for design defect can apply to asbestos gaskets and packing in pumps and valves, and failure to warn is a distinct strict liability theory that cannot be made to depend on first finding a risk/benefit design defect. A maker of a finished product cannot escape liability by pointing to a component made by another.
• Garza v. Asbestos Corp., Ltd. (1st Appellate District, 3rd Division, 2008). A supplier of raw asbestos can be held strictly liable for design defect and failure to warn, because incorporating raw asbestos into an insulation product does not substantially alter it. The bulk-supplier defense did not apply where the supplier gave no adequate warnings and the purchaser was not shown to know the dangers.
• Bakkie v. Union Carbide Corporation (1st Appellate District, 2nd Division, 2007). A raw-asbestos supplier is not relieved of its duty to warn merely because the buyer-employer knew or should have known of asbestos hazards or was subject to OSHA rules. A noneconomic damages award that is grossly disproportionate to the evidence and was influenced by improper argument may be reduced or retried on appeal.

Delaware

• Gibbs v. 84 Lumber Company (2020). Under South Carolina law as applied by the court, a raw-material supplier of asbestos that did not control its customers' finished products could reasonably rely on sophisticated manufacturer-intermediaries to warn end users. It therefore owed no duty to warn Mr. Gibbs, and the adequacy of its warnings did not need to be assessed.
• Robinson v. Union Carbide Corporation (2019). Under Ohio law, a bulk supplier has no duty to warn end users when it adequately warned a sophisticated intermediary and reasonably relied on it to pass the warning on. A plaintiff must offer evidence supporting a reasonable inference of a greater than fifty-percent chance of exposure to the defendant's product, and the opinion rejects a blanket rule that two or more suppliers to an intermediary defeats product identification.
• Malone v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2016). Under Mississippi law a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's asbestos-containing product with sufficient frequency, regularity and proximity, even in a mesothelioma case. A manufacturer of bare-metal equipment has no duty to warn about asbestos insulation made and supplied by others, and foreseeability of such use alone does not create that duty.

Florida

• Union Carbide Corporation v. Font (3rd District, 2020). A defendant may present evidence of alternative causes, such as a decedent's own sworn asbestos claims against non-parties, without proving those non-parties' fault by expert testimony; and a learned intermediary instruction must let the jury understand that reasonable reliance on an intermediary fulfills or discharges the duty to warn.
• Dugas v. 3M Company (2016). A dust mask not designed or marketed to protect against asbestos is not defectively designed for failing to do so, but a jury may find the manufacturer's warnings about its limits inadequate. A Florida fraud claim is barred when the last act of concealment fell outside the 12-year repose period.
• Aubin v. Union Carbide Corporation (2015). Florida keeps the consumer expectations test from the Second Restatement for strict liability design defect and does not require proof of a reasonable alternative design. Causation is judged by ordinary causation rules rather than by comparing the product with raw asbestos. A manufacturer may argue that it reasonably relied on a learned intermediary to warn end users, but it must request an accurate instruction on the defense.
• Union Carbide Corporation v. Aubin (3rd District, 2012). Under the Third Restatement's component parts doctrine, adopted in this district, a component seller is liable for a design defect only if the defective design, not the raw material's natural dangers, caused the harm. Whether a bulk supplier could discharge its duty to warn by reasonably relying on intermediaries is a jury question, and an instruction omitting that was misleading.
• Union Carbide Corporation v. Aubin (3rd District, 2012). Under the Third Restatement's component parts rule, which binds the Third District, a component supplier is liable for design defect only if the design, not the raw material's natural dangers, caused the harm. Whether a supplier discharged its duty to warn by reasonably relying on an intermediary is a jury question, and the jury must be told so.

Georgia

• Cabasug v. Crane Company (2013). Under maritime law the sophisticated user defense applies to both negligence and strict liability failure-to-warn claims. The sophisticated purchaser defense requires that the defendant knew the intermediary (the Navy) was aware of the asbestos dangers and reasonably concluded it would warn its employees, and the intermediary's knowledge alone is not enough.

Hawaii

• Cabasug v. Crane Co. (2013). Under maritime law the sophisticated user defense applies to both negligence and strict liability failure-to-warn claims. The sophisticated purchaser defense requires proof that the defendant knew the intermediary (the Navy) was aware of asbestos dangers and reasonably concluded it would warn its employees; the intermediary's knowledge alone is not enough.

Illinois

• Betts v. Manville Personal Injury Trust (4th District, 1992). A new trial was required because of plaintiffs' counsel's prejudicial tactics, an undisclosed expert, speculative cancer-risk evidence, evidence from another plant not shown to be similar, and over-broad collateral estoppel against Grefco. A prior finding fixing when a plaintiff learned of her injury can bar a later suit on limitations grounds, and a plaintiff who gets no allocation of an earlier settlement bears the burden on the setoff.

Louisiana

• Legendre v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2024). Under Louisiana law, a bare-metal product manufacturer that contemplated or specified asbestos-containing insulation for its product can be held liable for injuries from that insulation. A design defect claim fails without evidence that the product's design required asbestos insulation. Sophisticated-user and superseding-cause defenses raise fact questions that cannot be decided on summary judgment.
• Matherne v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2024). Whether an intermediary purchaser was a sophisticated user, relieving the manufacturer of a duty to warn under Louisiana law, turns on its actual or constructive knowledge of the danger. That is a state-of-mind question usually left to the jury, so it was not suited to summary judgment on this record.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Ins. Co. (2022). Under Louisiana law as applied by the Fifth Circuit, a manufacturer has no duty to warn the employees of a sophisticated purchaser, and a purchaser need not know the specific disease the product can cause. Whether chrysotile is less potent than other asbestos types is a fact question for the jury, not a ground for summary judgment.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). An expert's testimony is admissible if relevant to a pending issue, such as a shipyard's knowledge of asbestos hazards for a sophisticated-purchaser defense, but testimony on issues already resolved by summary judgment or outside the expert's field is excluded.
• Labarre v. Bienville Auto Parts Inc. (2022). Under Louisiana law, a seller that did not hold products out as its own or control their design or quality is not a manufacturer or professional vendor strictly liable for them. A non-manufacturer seller can still be liable in negligence if it knew or should have known the product was dangerous, and whether a user is sophisticated is ordinarily a fact question.
• Robertson v. Doug Ashy Building Materials, Inc. (1st Circuit, 2011). A summary judgment may be granted only on issues raised in the motion. A motion that challenges only exposure to the defendant's asbestos does not put medical causation at issue, and circumstantial evidence that a manufacturer bought the supplier's asbestos can create a fact question on exposure. A raw-asbestos supplier also owes the general duty of reasonable care.
• Benard v. Eagle, Inc. (4th Circuit, 2008). A prior appellate writ judgment granting summary judgment and dismissing the plaintiff's 'claims' against the defendants became final when the plaintiff did not seek rehearing or Supreme Court review, so res judicata barred relitigating all claims against them. No exceptional circumstances justified relief under La. R.S. 13:4232.
• Thomas v. AP Green Industries, Inc. (4th Circuit, 2006). A premises owner can be directly liable for its own negligence toward a contractor's employee even if the independent contractor defense bars vicarious liability, and the substantial contributing factor test for causation applies to premises owners as well as product defendants.
• Hennegan v. Cooper/T. Smith Stevedoring Co. (4th Circuit, 2002). Under federal maritime law, a manufacturer is strictly liable if its asbestos product, unreasonably dangerous and sold without warnings, was a substantial contributing cause of the harm. A non-settling defendant is solidarily liable for the whole of the damages, less the fault share of the settling employer.
• Abadie v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. (5th Circuit, 2001). In a long-latency asbestos case, a cause of action accrues, for choosing between pre- and post-1976 law, when exposures were significant enough to start a disease process that progresses independently of further exposure. Under pre-comparative-fault Louisiana law, a settling or bankrupt solidary obligor found liable counts as a virile (pro rata) share, and co-employee safety officers are liable only for a personal breach of a delegated duty.
• Asbestos v. Bordelon, Inc. (4th Circuit, 1998). Where significant asbestos exposure occurred before the Louisiana Products Liability Act, pre-Act law governs, including strict liability for products unreasonably dangerous per se, by design or for failure to warn, and pre-comparative-fault virile share rules. A manufacturer is liable only if plaintiffs show frequent, regular exposure to its product, and prescription runs from the time a plaintiff has actual or constructive knowledge of an asbestos-related injury.

Maryland

• Sawyer v. Union Carbide Corporation (2019). Under Maryland law, a supplier invoking the sophisticated user defense must show it reasonably relied on the intermediary to warn users, which requires evidence that it warned the intermediary or knew a warning was unnecessary. An employer's failure to warn is not a superseding cause unless it was extraordinary and unforeseeable.
• Rockman v. Union Carbide Corp. (2017). Where a plaintiff offers no opposition and no supporting evidence, Maryland law bars these claims: warranty claims accrue on tender of delivery, market share liability is not recognized, and punitive damages require clear and convincing proof of actual malice.
• Stein v. Pfizer Inc. (2016). Under the objective reliance test, the actual reliance test, and the enterprise liability test alike, a parent company is not an "apparent manufacturer" of a subsidiary's industrial product where the sophisticated purchaser knew it bought from the subsidiary and the parent did not substantially participate in the design, manufacture or distribution.
• Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. Balbos (1992). A nonmanufacturing supplier-installer of asbestos is held to a 'should have known' standard in a negligent failure-to-warn claim. A bystander plaintiff must show frequent exposure near regularly used products of the particular defendant to prove substantial-factor causation, and 'fiber drift' alone is not enough. A sophisticated-user instruction requires evidence that the supplier reasonably relied on the intermediary, and punitive damages require actual malice shown by clear and convincing evidence.
• Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. Balbos (1990). A jury's negligence verdict was upheld despite arguably inconsistent findings, and a defendant's failure to warn was a cause-in-fact of harm to bystander shipyard workers, with expert evidence of asbestos fibers drifting supporting the inference that bystanders were exposed. Suppliers could not rely on the employer as a sophisticated purchaser. Punitive damages require direct evidence of substantial knowledge that the product itself was dangerous and gross indifference to that danger.